Field service companies can face major day-to-day challenges such as poorly planned routes, delays, miscommunication, lack of resources, incorrect staff for a particular service? All of these directly affect excellence in customer service. To streamline this process, Field Service aggregates a variety of tools to improve service delivery.

As a stand-alone Dynamics 365 module, Dynamics 365 Field Service facilitates management (including calendars) and gives managers full access to check-in, check-out, and technical data.

In this blog post, we’ll look at where Field Service sits in your business and touch on some of the biggest advantages the solution can bring to your field service operations.

Is your business facing these field service challenges?

Low productivity in field service is often due to factors that often escape the attention of management and generally stem from the issue of data silos and decentralization of information. The most challenging areas of field service include:

• Human resources management: Field service companies need highly specialized in-house technicians. In today’s job market, disruptions in human resources can cost a company dearly.
• Poorly defined itineraries: Scheduling visits at close times to distant locations can hinder punctuality and even delay other tasks, compromising any attempts at optimizing service delivery.
• Resource logistics: The success of job can be jeopardized when specific equipment cannot be booked, such as cars and tools, as a result of mismanagement of resources.

In this context, centralizing information and making it available to the entire team is one way you can optimize field service tasks. We’ll tackle this in depth in a second!

What advantages does Dynamics 365 Field Service bring to service delivery?

All Dynamics 365 modules are supported by Microsoft cloud technology and are all the top choice for hundreds of companies in the field service business, with the Field Service module being the most obvious choice, designed especially for businesses with a field service component to their operations.

Field Service is simple to deploy and does not require complex customizations. In fact, as an out-of-the-box tool, it’s more a matter of configuration than personalization.

In the case of Dynamics 365 Field Service, the focus is front office service delivery but it can also be easily combined with the ERP, back-office technologies offered in Microsoft Dynamics 365, like Dynamics 365 Finance or Dynamics 365 Human Resources.

Here, we look at some of the specific advantages of Dynamics 365 Field Service:

1. Shift optimizations

Field Service features a smart, responsive routing system that helps optimize travel and meet visit goals. It is an advanced, automated route engine that increases the number of services per agent per week, saving fuel and vehicle maintenance costs.

2. Technician management

If repair or maintenance requires technician-specific skills, Dynamics 365 system recognizes who has the skills necessary to perform a particular job and helps you to direct that person to the job.

3. Resource logistics

The Field Service module enables you to allocate appropriate resources for your technicians to carry out jobs, greatly improving the first-time repair rate.

4. Unified schedules

With a centralized, routing-connected scheduling system, Field Service enables you to schedule business hours that are right for your customers, assign tasks to the right service agents, and keep customers informed of their arrival times. All with real-time updates.

5. Real-time insight for customers

You can provide your service technicians complete customer information and even enable collaboration between teams throughout the task, with a 360-degree view of customer priorities and records. The customer automatically receives text messages and calls to keep them informed about each stage of the service.

In practice, with Field Service you can deliver:

• punctuality
• information
• productivity
• satisfaction

Transform field service with Microsoft Dynamics 365

What makes Dynamics 365 Field Service different?

First and foremost, integration is the clear differentiator when it comes to Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Field Service also offers 24/7 customer service to effectively reduce call volume and shift reliance to an internal knowledge base hosted and fueled by Dynamics 365.

Preventative maintenance can also be managed by Dynamics 365 with automation tools, while integration with the call center ensures tickets that do not require escalation to field service are contained by the customer service module, avoiding unnecessary visits and preserving resources. This is only possible because the module works within a broader service platform.

Why Dynamics 365 is driving change in field service delivery

The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Dynamics 365 For Field Service report, a Microsoft-commissioned report, interviewed companies around the world using the product, and the results are eye-popping. Take a look!

Field Service is all about optimizing your field service delivery with improved resource logistics, people management, and scheduling control, among other advantages. All of this, of course, leading to improved customer satisfaction!

The module is native to the Dynamics platform, requiring configuration rather than customization. AlfaPeople, a leading global Dynamics 365 company, is on hand with specialist consultants to drive best practice and transformation in your company with Dynamics 365 Field Service. Contact us today to learn more!